Dayton Economy

Dayton is searching for a new city manager, and taking public input this month on what residents want from a manager. This job, unlike the mayor, isn’t an elected position.

So what exactly does a city manager do?

Current manager Tim Riordan is basically Dayton’s chief executive. Elected officials—mainly the city commissioners—mull over proposals, pass them and then task Riordan with actually carrying them out. But he also lobbies lawmakers in the statehouse and takes part in union negotiations. And he says that’s not all.

Dayton, Cincinnati, Montgomery County and the Dayton Development Coalition are all collaborating on regional application. The federal program is called "Investing in Manufacturing Communities Partnership."

The state of Ohio has announced plans for Chinese auto-glass manufacturer Fuyao to take over more than a million square feet of the former General Motors plant in Moraine, south of Dayton. The news is a major breakthrough for southwest Ohio, which has been struggling for decades with the slow trickle-out of major American manufacturers from the area.

Shoppers are out in full force for Black Friday, traditionally one of the biggest shopping days of the year. And there are plenty of options when it comes to buying holiday gifts. Retail giants like Walmart and Target specialize in high volume, low priced goods that will draw shoppers in to their stores, but the holiday shopping season is one that many small, locally-owned shops depend on for survival.

GetPrinting3D, a retail store for three-dimensional printers, opened for business on the north side of Dayton Thursday. It’s one of just a handful in the country, but the potential uses of 3D printers are growing fast.

In the center of a cube-shaped 3D printer about the size of a hotel mini-fridge, a little mechanical arm squirts out thin jets of white liquid plastic, slowly building a chess piece.

Meanwhile, Brent Cox, of GetPrinting3D, holds up the future in his hands.

Federal regulators held a public meeting Monday to talk about banking services in West Dayton. The closing of the Westown PNC branch this summer has turned a large part of West Dayton into a “banking desert”; from the former site of the bank, there are no bank branches within a two-mile radius.

At the crowded meeting, David Greer with the Northwest Priority Board called the departure of banks from the neighborhood “redlining.”

“It is a form of discrimination, and this is something that we as a people have fought long and hard for decades against,” he said.

A yearly study from Brookings and JPMorgan Chase shows exports are an important piece of the economic recovery in the Dayton region. The Export Nation 2013 report shows that exports grew about 7 percent each year from 2009 to 2012 in the greater Dayton area.

The NCAA’s First Four tournament kick off today at the University of Dayton Arena. The games will open with less fanfare than they did a year ago but there’s still plenty of excitement surrounding them.

Absent this year from the NCAA tournament kickoff is a presidential visit and the big Oregon District street party that began last year, but this year’s First Four event has been sold out since last October. The tournament opening has a significant economic impact for the Dayton area.